Exploration: The act or an instance of exploring. Exploration and settlement of the western United States by Americans and Europeans wreaked havoc on the Indian peoples living there.
expansion: the act or process of expanding. In the 19th century the American drive for expansion clashed violently with the Native American resolve to preserve their lands, sovereignty, and ways of life.
frontier: the part of a country that borders another country. From the 1860s through the 1870s the American frontier was filled with Indian wars and skirmishes.
skirmishes: a fight between small bodies of troops, esp. From the 1860s through the 1870s the American frontier was filled with Indian wars and skirmishes.
Tribes:
a local division of an aboriginal people. In 1865 a congressional committee began a study of the Indian uprisings and wars in the West, resulting in a Report on the Condition of the Indian Tribes , which was released in 1867.
treaty: the formal document embodying such an international agreement. The United States government set out to establish a series of Indian treaties that would force the Indians to give up their lands and move further west onto reservations.
reservation: the act of keeping back, withholding, or setting apart. The United States government set out to establish a series of Indian treaties that would force the Indians to give up their lands and move further west onto reservations.
conference: a meeting for consultation or discussion. In the spring of 1868 a conference was held at Fort Laramie, in present day Wyoming, that resulted in a treaty with the Sioux.
Territory: any tract of land. This treaty was to bring peace between the whites and the Sioux who agreed to settle within the Black Hills reservation in the Dakota Territory.
confiscate: to seize as forfeited to the public domain. the United States would continue its battle against the Sioux in the Black Hills until the government confiscated the land in 1877.
